The parliamentary and presidential elections held on May 14 this year in Turkey, to which the special attention of external observers is riveted, nevertheless did not surprise with their results. First of all, the elections confirmed the high tension and the state of an almost proportional split in Turkish society into supporters and opponents of Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu, East and West, radical Islamic and moderately secular, imperial-independent and republican-pro-Western path of development of the country.
As a result, Turkey received a new parliament, and taking into account the 7% barrier in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT), the following political alliances and parties passed:
“Nation Alliance” received 49.3% of the vote and about 322 out of 600 seats in parliament – the Justice and Development Party (266 seats), the Nationalist Movement Party (51 seats) and the Welfare Party (5 seats);
“People’s Alliance” won 35.19% and about 212 seats – the Republican People’s Party (168 seats) and the Good Party (44 seats);
Labor and Freedom Alliance – The Green Left Party (YSP) has 66 seats.
In fact, the united opposition in the new composition of the GNAT will have 278 seats against the 322 seats of the Nation Alliance, the AKP’s advantage standing at only 7% (or 44 MPs). Such an arrangement in the parliament promises Turkey an active political competition.
As for the fate of the supreme executive power, the first round of presidential elections, with all the intensity of the political struggle between the incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the leader of the unified opposition bloc (or rather the alliance of 6 parties) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, still did not reveal the winner. The result of counting 100% of the ballots shows that 49.24% of voters cast their votes for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and 45% for Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Since none of them got the necessary 50% to win in the first round, Turkey will face the second round of the presidential election on May 28.
In fact, as the campaign of the two main candidates (Kılıçdaroğlu and Erdoğan) unfolded, the world has witnessed not just an increase in the degree of political confrontation in the struggle for power but also the transformation of this competition into an arena of geopolitical rivalry between two major international players, the United States and Russia.
It is no secret that among the reasons for the dissatisfaction of the United States with the policies and candidacy of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were: a) his passion for a foreign policy independent from Washington’s dictates; b) Turkey’s pragmatic relations with Russia; c) the strategy of Neo-Ottomanism and Neo-PanTurkism. President Erdoğan’s ally and Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu began to accuse America directly of all sins and interference in the internal political process of the elections. Erdoğan himself unequivocally accused US Ambassador in Ankara Jeffrey Flake of supporting the opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu and refused any contact with him.
In the Western (including American) media, the topic of the Turkish elections was covered quite substantially, where criticism of Erdoğan (especially for his special relationship with President Putin) overshadowed any other reasonable approach. The latter objectively gave Erdoğan’s supporters reason to question Washington’s objective attitude.
For the sake of objectivity, it should be noted that in Russia, too, a lot of attention is paid to the topic of the Turkish elections. Accordingly, the Russian expert community and the media take a rather high interest in these elections due to: the objective reasons of the current bilateral relations between our countries; the trends of growing trust and partnership; Turkey’s increasing role in regional affairs; Ankara’s wise position in the situation of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. However, unlike our Western colleagues, we do not refute one candidate for the sake of another, we limit ourselves as much as possible to objective assessments, we believe that it is the sovereign right and business of the Turkish people to determine their own destiny and leader.
One of the obvious pieces of evidence of the discriminating approach and non-interference of the Russian side in the process of the Turkish elections is the voting results of the Turkish citizens at the polling stations on the territory of the Russian Federation. According to Turkish Anadolu Agency, more than half of the Turkish voters (54.47%) support Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy and only 38.26% support Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Meanwhile, the CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, President Erdoğan’s main opponent, has a rather well-known reputation as a refined official and financial specialist-bureaucrat. His party’s representatives are mayors of Turkey’s two main cities, Ankara (Mansur Yavaş) and Istanbul (Ekrem Imamoğlu), that is, the two centers of big capital linked to the West.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu decided to pass off the obvious achievements of the Turkish-Russian economic partnership represented in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s election campaign (e.g., the launch of nuclear fuel for the first nuclear power plant in Mersin, Russia’s agreement to meet Turkey halfway on extending the financial debt for Russian gas consumption caused by the critical financial situation in Turkey and the consequences of the devastating earthquake; and maybe even the success of the Turkish-Russian dialogue on the Syrian problem) as interference of Russia in the internal affairs of Turkey. As an external reason, Kılıçdaroğlu’s supporters chose some editing of a common photo of the opposition leader with the leader of the Kurdish PKK party, which is banned in Turkey, as an alleged Russian fake news. The main opposition figure either intimidated Russia or signaled his own weakness (claiming he would be able to drastically change Turkey’s policy from partnership to confrontation if he came to power).
Such “menacing” warning statement of Turkish opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu is an evidence of his political shortsightedness, firstly, for Turkey could not frighten Russia with all its might; secondly, Ankara should value the level of trust and partnership reached between our countries, for the joint mega-projects, both realized and planned, could only benefit Anatolia; thirdly, if this hasty accusatory statement about Russia was nevertheless considered and agreed with the United States, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, changing the course of his party founder Kemal Atatürk, is dragging Turkey into a new round of confrontation between the West and Russia with a change in Turkey’s neutrality to a hostile approach to Moscow.
Moscow realizes that the Kurdish question remains a “sore subject” for Turkey, its security and territorial integrity, as well as the fact that Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin are given equal rights and participate in the same political elections. But Moscow has no influence on the Kurds and other peoples of united Turkey in favor of voting for any candidate, because it considers this an internal matter of the sovereignty of the Turkish state.
Hopefully, a sober assessment of the Russian factor in the Middle East, the South Caucasus and Central Asia will finally sober up Kılıçdaroğlu’s advisers and change the tone and substance of their statements regarding our country. It is no coincidence that the charismatic Erdoğan sharply criticized and shamed his opponent in this connection, since the AKP leader and incumbent president of Turkey does not need such a cheap provocation. Nevertheless, thanks to the efforts of the Turkish opposition Turkey turns into another arena of geopolitical confrontation between the USA and Russia.
What can be expected on May 28 following the second round of presidential elections in Turkey? First of all, whatever the result, which will certainly take place regardless of the political weather, on May 29, 2023, which is the day of the 570th anniversary of the foundation of the Ottoman Empire (May 29, 1453, the day Constantinople fell to the forces of Sultan Mehmed Fatih/The Conqueror), Turkey will get a new, 13th president. One can also consider this the foresight of Turkish political symbolism in the mind of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the still incumbent president of Turkey.
Some Russian authors believe that the current “Turkish Gambit” may have three variants of resolution: 1) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wins and Turkey continues the course of independence from the West towards a new empire based on the doctrine of Neo-Ottomanism and Neo-PanTurkism; 2) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu wins and Turkey abandons its pragmatic independent policy in favor of a close alliance with the United States, NATO and the EU, which may have a defined negative impact on relations with Russia and Iran in the Middle East, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia; 3) Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu are engaged in a sharp civil conflict, elections are demonized by dictatorship and the West is forced to bargain through London with Erdoğan to reach compromises due to the importance of Turkey’s geography and content.
The author will not propose new theories, but the fact remains that one of these two will become the 13th president of Turkey. Naturally, although the second round was not unexpected for Erdoğan and his party, the incumbent president received, most likely, a psychological shock after 20 years of uninterrupted rule. The 2023 elections proved to be the most difficult and tense in Turkey’s modern history. Of course, Erdoğan’s biography indicates that he is used to dealing with difficulties, which the Turkish leader tackles as they come and depending on the degree of threat. But his age, his state of health, his problems in the economy and the nature of external pressure with the participation of the United States are significant factors.
For all the tensions, the first round of voting revealed the positive achievements of Turkish democracy (in particular, the counting of ballots to hundredths of percent, the relatively high political culture of opponents without going to personal insults, especially given the southern temperament). Of course, experts, and observers will still count and list the shortcomings and possible violations during the elections (more than 1 million ballots were declared invalid by the Turkish CEC, there were fistfights between supporters of the main candidates in some polling stations, the fact that Erdoğan gave money to children from poor families caused criticism). However, all of these facts have no critical content in terms of influencing the results of the elections themselves.
For his part, this author remains hopeful that profit will prevail in Turkey.
Aleksandr SVARANTS, PhD in political science, professor, exclusively for the online journal “New Eastern Outlook.”
